


The cat came back

by aflyingcontradiction



Category: Original Work
Genre: Domestic Violence, Gen, Homophobia, Trans Character, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 02:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12333252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflyingcontradiction/pseuds/aflyingcontradiction
Summary: Lilly and her brother Sam used to be joined at the hips ever since they both got kicked out by their parents. But all of that changed when Sam met Wade. Now Lilly hasn't talked to her little brother in months. Then how come everything reminds her of him today. And what the hell is up with that creepy cat that keeps following her around?Inspired by the putthepromptsonpaper.tumblr.com prompt “I thought cats weren’t supposed to be needy” “I thought cats were only supposed to have two eyes”





	The cat came back

I’d always been under the impression that weird and supernatural shit was supposed to happen on dark and stormy nights, on special days like Halloween, when Jupiter aligns with Mars or what have you. 

But when I met the cat it was a completely ordinary Saturday afternoon in March and the only thing stormy that day had been my phone call to Mum. 

I’d put it off for as long as I could, of course, but things were starting to look desperate. The rent was long overdue and I’d been living of ramen for long enough that scurvy was starting to look like a serious concern. I really needed her to sign the damn student aid papers. You wouldn’t think that’d be too much to ask, right? Just a quick signature to make it official that she’d disowned me. It would have taken her two seconds.

Of course, the phone call went about as well as expected. After fifteen minutes of being yelled at, I’d had enough, shouted back at her that “No, actually my brother is the disgusting faggot, I’m the tranny abomination, get your slurs straight!” and hung up. 

I sat down at my desk and stared for a while at the cursor flashing slowly, rhythmically behind the essay title, the only words in the document so far. I flipped through my notes, not taking in a single word. 

Half an hour later, the only thing that had changed was that the title was now followed by the words “Fuck fuck fuck FUUUUUUUUCK” and a keysmash. 

Absent-mindedly I reached for my phone and started to dial Sam’s number, the only phone number I had ever known by heart. I was just about to enter the final “2” when I realised what I was doing and shoved the phone away from me so fast it ended up in the trash can by the desk. 

I couldn’t call Sam. He had probably blocked my number by now. And even if he hadn’t, it would just be fucking Wade answering the phone, shouting at me about how I was a leech who was ruining Sam’s life and how I’d better stop calling if I knew what was good for me. 

Wade had some fucking nerve to call me a leech when he was the one living in my Grandpa’s house, selling off my Grandpa’s priced antique clocks to pay for his ridiculous car and I was the one struggling to make rent. When he’d been the one to drive me out of my own home and then act like I was unreasonable for asking my little brother for some cash once in a while. Fuck Wade! And fuck Sam, too! Abandoning his big sister over some random dickhead with a cute ass. I’d spent half my life protecting that fucking ingrate from our parents. Fuck my life, too!

I dug my phone out of the trash can and messaged Charlie instead: “Hey, are you free today?”

The response I’d expected came almost immediately: “Yeah.” Charlie was always free. He had less of a social life than me and that was saying something. 

“Goat and Boot in an hour?”

“Yeah. See you there.”

\------------------------------------------------------

Twenty minutes later I got on the bus to the centre of town. Two old farts in the front row were staring at me as I walked past, but neither of them said anything. They were probably just admiring my cherry-print dress! I strutted past them all the way to the back row where I plopped myself down on an empty seat.

Having nothing else to do, I started reading the advertising posters above me. One of them, for an estate agency, featured a smiling family in front of a huge house with the tagline “Find your way home.” Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, was it? 

The only home I had ever had was the one where Grandpa had hissed down the phone: “I don’t give a damn if you caught him kissing Satan himself. You do not kick out your thirteen year old son in the middle of the bloody night!” 

The one where, a couple of years later, my Grandpa had opened the door for my bawling self with a resigned face: “So you’re gay, too, then?” and I had told him sobbing, in the doorframe, that I was a girl, had always been a girl and he had waved me inside and gone: “Well, I suppose I’ve always wanted a granddaughter.” 

It was the place where Sam and I had snuggled up in our single bed, talking till 2 in the morning about school and boys and the future and how, when he was a famous artist and I had made a shit-ton of money as a lawyer, we’d travel the world together. 

It was the place where, every week or two, we would wake up Grandpa by cursing loudly when we stepped in Minky’s puke in the hallway and he would shout through the house: “IT’S PAST MIDNIGHT! GO TO SLEEP!” and we would both giggle like little children.

 

But of course that place had been in-Wade-d now, so it wasn’t like I was going back anytime soon. 

 

I got out at my usual stop and started strolling down the road to the old part of town. Every once in a while I’d stop for a moment to listen to one of the buskers who were sitting by shop fronts with their caps and guitar cases out in front of them. 

I stood for a moment by a guitarist with long blonde hair and a gorgeous voice. I didn’t know the song he was playing, but when I heard the lines: “And I will be my brothers keeper, not the one who judges him” I left rather quickly. 

Now random fucking buskers I’d never seen before in my life were guilt-tripping me?

It’s not like I hadn’t tried the whole brother’s keeper shit! It had been me who’d made sure my parents didn’t find out about his boyfriend and then, when they had found out after all, it had been me who had walked him to my Grandpa’s when they’d kicked him out. 

I’d tried to be his fucking keeper, it was hardly my fault that he’d rather have Wade in his life than me.

\------------------------------------------------------

On some level I knew I was being silly. After all, the busker had hardly chosen that song just because I came by and it was ridiculous to get worked up over a dumb coincidence. But it didn’t exactly make my day any better, so by the time I reached the Goat and Boot, I was just about ready to cry. 

Charlie was already sitting at one of the tables sipping on a pint, with another one untouched, clearly waiting for me.

“You know I can’t pay you back for that, right?”

“Hi Lilly, nice to see you, too,” he answered. “Now shut up, sit down and have a drink. You look awful.”

“Thanks,” I said sarcastically. “Nice to know someone appreciates my outfit.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Your outfit’s awesome. It’s your face that looks like somebody just died. Now sit.”

I sat. 

“What’s going on?”

Instead of crying, I just took a big gulp and then told him about the call that morning. 

“Your mum’s a dick.”

“No shit.”

For a while we just sat there, sipping on our drinks and ranting about life. Charlie knew all about Sam and Wade and about my parents. He’d been my friend way before I was Lilly and the first person I had come out to. I’d been the one he used to call on those nights when life just seemed far too much to handle. Somehow it was nice to know that even now, no matter how shit things were, we were both in a better place than when we had first met. 

Charlie was just cheering me up by imitating his least favourite lecturer and the man’s very peculiar way of condescending to his students, when there was a loud shout and then a high-pitched “Aw, how cute!” 

We both turned around, only to see a fat calico cat happily hopping across tables with apparent disregard for the glasses on them - that explained the rather drenched and angry appearance of the man at the table across which the cat was currently bouncing.

“Minky,” I mumbled.

“Huh?”

“That cat looks just like Minky.” 

“Didn’t she disappear after your grandpa died? Maybe it’s her!”

“Seems unlikely.”

The cat had just - rather gracefully for its size, I had to admit - escaped the grasp of the wet bloke and was now clawing its way up a wall of posters. The laughs and squeals and exclamations of “Aw, kitty!” and “Here, kitty!” made it sound like the entire pub was now watching as the cat reached the top of the wall. 

A poster advertising the gig of a local indie band called “Uncle Sam” came half-away from the wall under the cat’s weight and the calico dropped onto the floor with an audible thump.

The shredded poster now read only “Sam wants you”. I quickly turned away.

“Aw, look, it’s coming over here!”

The cat was heading straight for our table. It made to jump and landed in my lap. 

“Well, now I’m jealous,” laughed Charlie.

“Don’t be. It’s getting fur all over my dress and it stinks.” 

Almost as if the cat had understood me, it turned its head and gave me a very disdainful look. It hopped onto the table where it turned to me and started meowing loudly. I reached for my beer and the cat aimed a swipe at me. I pulled my hand away just in time to avoid claws.

“Okay, cat, you’re not as cute as you think and I’m trying to have a drink here, so…” I pushed the cat rather roughly off the table. It promptly jumped back on and continued to meow at me.

“I don’t have any food, kitty, go away.” I tried to shove her off the table again with similar success.

“Are you sure that’s not Minky?”

“Yeah, Minky didn’t like me much.”

“For some reason that doesn’t surprise me.”

The cat was now meowing - no, screeching - at me loudly enough that it was getting hard to talk and everyone was staring at us. This wasn’t good at all. I could handle a couple of people staring at me. I had to. But an entire pub? I could feel myself going red.

Now even the barman had stopped serving people and was staring curiously at our table. 

“Hey, is that your cat?”

“No! Never seen it in our lives!” Charlie responded.

“Want me to take it outside?”

“Yes” I answered at the same time as Charlie said “Nah, I think we can handle a cat.” 

He made a grab for the calico, but with a short jump, it landed on my lap, put a paw on each of my shoulders and screeched right in my ear.

“Okay. Enough’s enough, you furry little shithead.” I grabbed the cat and tried to pull it off, but it dug its claws into my shoulders. “OUCH!”

“It really likes you.”

“Likes me? The damn thing is trying to flay me!” The cat was holding on with unusual force.

Charlie was now laughing his arse off, the complete bastard. Wheezing, he said: “I thought cats weren’t supposed to be needy.”

With a triumphant “Gotcha!” I finally managed to drag the damn thing off my shoulders. As I looked into its face, a high-pitched noise of horror escaped my throat. I dropped the calico like a hot potato.

“A-and I thought cats were only supposed to have two eyes.”

“Huh?”

It hopped back on the table.

“Please tell me you’re seeing this, too, Charlie.” 

In the time it had taken me to tear the beast off my shoulders, it had sprouted two additional eyes above its own. Bespectacled eyes, to be exact. Bespectacled eyes that looked exactly like my grandfather’s.

“Seeing what?”

“Fuck, I need some air,” I said and stormed out.

\------------------------------------------------------

I didn’t turn around until I had run all the way down the road and heard Charlie coming up behind me.

“What ... “, he gasped, “the hell … was … that?”

“You’re going to laugh and call me crazy.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are! The fucking cat suddenly had two extra eyes, okay?”

To his credit, Charlie neither laughed nor called me crazy. He merely looked incredibly concerned and put his hand on my shoulder: “Have you been taking something?”  
“What? No!”

“You sure?”

“YES! Bloody hell.”

“Maybe it’s the stress. You should go home and lie down.”

“I guess.” I got my phone out to check the bus schedule. “I’m not sure whether some rest is going to fix massive halluci … fuck.”

The creepy cat had left the pub and was running right at us.

“Wow, that’s one persistent kitty. Still four-eyed?”

“This isn’t funny, Charlie. And YES.”

The cat had caught up with us now. The moment it was within reach, it jumped. I tried to dodge it, but the furry freak was faster than I was. It landed right on my arm, knocking my phone clean out of my hand. I flailed my arms madly to shake off the cat and catch my phone before it met its untimely death at the hands of the pavement. I only just caught it by the corner of the case. 

With a sigh of relief, I looked at the screen. I turned white. It seems in my mad scramble to catch the phone, I had somehow accidentally dialed Sam’s number.

I was about to hang up, but then I looked down at the cat. It was looking at me with a gloating expression in its own eyes and a stern glare in my grandfather’s. Unthinking, I lifted the phone to my ear. It rang once, twice, three times. The entire time the damn cat was staring at me. Glaring. Expectant.

I must have looked about as bad as I felt, because when I started hearing the voice mail message and lowered the phone, Charlie was standing right behind me, ready to catch me if I fainted.

“Listen, Lilly, maybe you should see a doctor about this.”

“No,” I muttered.

“Well, at least you’ve got to get home and rest.”

“Home…” I muttered, my eyes flitting back and forth between my phone and the four-eyed calico, unable to stop. “I’ve got to go home.”

“Yeah, I’ll take you to the bus stop.”

My head snapped up to look at Charlie: “No, I’ve got to go home. Proper home. Grandpa’s place.”

Charlie gave me a confused look. “Wait. Why?”

“Sam didn’t answer the phone. I’m worried.”

“He hasn’t answered the damn phone in ages.”

“I’ve just got to, okay?”

Even though Charlie was my best friend, I could hardly tell him that I thought the damn cat wanted me to. He was probably already thinking I was having some sort of mental breakdown. I didn’t blame him. I probably was.

Charlie looked at me for a moment, then said: “Okay. Let’s go.”

“Huh? You mean you’re coming?”

“No, I’m leaving you to wander around town all willy-nilly when you look like you’re about to pass out. Of course I’m coming, dumbass.”

The cat gave a loud meow of - I was probably imagining this - approval, turned around and sped off. 

\------------------------------------------------------

Grandpa’s place was much closer to the Goat and Boot than mine. Charlie suggested taking the bus, but I knew we’d be faster walking than waiting at the bus stop for a once-an-hour bus and I knew that I couldn’t waste a minute. 

I needed to get home. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew it was urgent. I was running so fast that Charlie started to fall behind.

“Bloody hell, woman,” he panted. “I … can barely … breathe back here. Slow down.”

“We’ve got to go,” I shrieked.

“No, you’ve got to ... stop for a minute or … it’ll be me fainting … after all.”

I stopped and, for the third time since we’d started walking, dug my phone out of my pocket to call Sam. He still wasn’t answering and neither was Wade.

“Fuck,” gasped Charlie who had only just caught up with me. “You’re killing me today, Lilly.”

“I’m sorry, but …”

“I know, we’ve got to keep going or there will be doom, death and destruction.” 

“There might be!” I said.

“Oh my God, Lilly,” he sighed loudly.

He was clearly more pissed off than worried at this point and it was a testament to his quality as a friend that he didn’t just tell me to fuck off and leave me behind. 

I tried to slow down, but only a few minutes later Charlie had already fallen behind again. It was hard not to run. I knew this was ridiculous, I was having some sort of nervous breakdown, I should be at a doctor’s office or at least at home in bed, sleeping off whatever fucked-up phenomenon was twisting my brain. 

But I needed to see Sam. I needed to know…

Finally we arrived in the sleepy street where my Grandpa’s house stood. It looked just the same as it always had. I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting, but after the cat, I wouldn’t have been particularly surprised if I had spotted some Cthulhu-esque monster gobbling up my brother at the far end of the street.

I ran along the street until I’d reached the front door and knocked. Charlie was still trailing behind, a look on his face like he was about to break something, that something probably being my neck. When he reached me he said in a low voice: “So turns out the world hasn’t ended over in this part of the town. I hope you’re…”

At that exact moment, there was a loud crash inside and a terrified shout of “Wade! No!” 

Charlie’s eyes widened. All colour drained from his face.

“Should we…”

But before he ever finished his sentence, I had already dug the spare key out of my pocket and burst through the door, through the front room, into the kitchen where I could hear voices. 

My sweet little brother was cowering in a corner, protecting his face with his arms from Wade, who was aiming punches at every inch of Sam’s body he could reach. There was broken china on the floor. 

If I’d had time to analyse the situation, I might have been scared. Wade was bigger than me, stronger than me and quite obviously more willing to punch people than me. But I wasn’t thinking. I just reacted. 

In a split second I had dashed across the kitchen and was tearing Wade off my brother. I must have taken him by surprise, because he didn’t so much as lift a hand to fight back.

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE THIS SECOND!” I screamed, shoving him toward the door so hard that Charlie, who was standing in the doorframe staring at the scene in disbelief, had to jump out of the way to avoid getting hit by a baffled Wade.

Wade didn’t say anything until I had pushed him out of the front door, when he turned back and shouted: “Sam, you’ll…”

I cut him off: “Don’t you dare talk to him! Don’t you dare get anywhere near him again! I swear I will call the fucking police on you. FUCK OFF!”

I think he did after a while, but I’m not sure, because I slammed the door in his face and ran back into the kitchen to fall on my knees next to my brother, who was still lying in the corner, looking dazed. A trickle of blood was making its way from his nose to his chin and a nasty bruise was starting to form on the side of his face.

“Oh God, Sam, are you okay? We need to take you to the hospital. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should’ve been here. That fucker. I should’ve stayed. I’m sorry.” 

I could feel tears pricking my eyes and before I knew it, I was bawling like a baby and babbling incoherently, caressing my baby brother’s bruised face.

\------------------------------------------------------

It was a good thing for both of us that Charlie was there with us. By the time I had stopped sobbing enough to get a grip on myself and my arse off the floor, Charlie had already helped Sam up, offered to take him to a doctor, which he rejected, helped him clean his blood and snot smeared face, draped him in a blanket and put the kettle on.

Soon we were sitting around the kitchen table and sipping warm, comforting tea. I could see that Sam’s hands were still shaking and I reached across the table to hold his arm.

“Do you want to report him? Because if you do, we’ll be right there with you. We’ll tell them what we saw. Won’t we, Charlie?” 

Charlie nodded gravely.

“No. No, I can’t,” muttered Sam. “It would ruin his life.”

“Ruin his life? Are you kid…” 

I stopped talking when I saw Charlie giving me a stern look and shaking his head ever so slightly. He was right. Sam didn’t need a lecture right now. He needed someone to listen. Still, it was hard to keep my mouth shut.

“He’s not usually like this … not this bad anyway.”

“You’re saying he’s done this before?” 

I was livid. I think if I hadn’t still been holding Sam’s arm, I would have gotten right out of my chair, run after Wade and beat the everliving crap out of him - all six foot two of him.

“Not like this. He … he just gets mad sometimes, I guess. He shouts. Throws stuff. I suppose he’s grabbed me a bit hard a few times but he always apologises and I bruise easily anyway. You know I do. It’s not that big of a deal. But he’s never hit me before. We were fighting about the cuckoo clock. He wanted to sell it.”

I gasped.

“Yeah. I told him how old it was and that it was a wedding gift and we couldn’t sell it. I mean,” Sam smiled slightly, “Grandpa would’ve come back from the grave to kick my ass himself if I’d sold that clock, right?”

The cat’s extra eyes popped into my mind, unbidden. I put on a fake smile and said: “Yeah.”

“But Wade told me to stop being sentimental and that Grandpa couldn’t use the piece of shit anyway now that he was dead - that’s what he said, ‘the piece of shit’. He said we really needed the money, ‘cause I wasn’t ever going to get a job with my useless design degree and he was tired of having to spend all his money supporting my lazy arse.”

“Load of bullshit!” I shouted. “He’s sold off most of Grandpa’s collection. That must’ve earned him more than his shitty job does in a year!”

“Yeah. And I mentioned that. I wasn’t even being nasty about it or anything. I just mentioned that this place and the clocks and everything were my inheritance and that I was contributing and that’s when he … he just snapped …” 

Sam looked so sad, disappointed and forlorn that I just couldn’t stay in my seat. I got up, walked around the table and pulled him off his chair and into a hug.

We must’ve stayed like that for a while, just sobbing onto each other’s shoulders until his shirt and my dress were both sodden with snot. Charlie had made us more tea and then left the kitchen to busy himself elsewhere by the time that Sam pulled away from me and asked: “How did you know I needed you?”

What was I supposed to say? That Grandpa had, in fact, come back from the grave, not to kick Sam’s arse but to stop Wade from doing so? I couldn’t tell him about today’s events, he’d been through enough without thinking his sister had gone off her rocker.

“There were signs,” I answered cryptically.

“But I’ve been such an arse. I should’ve never let Wade kick you out. You were right about him. You were.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I didn’t deserve your help.”

“Oh fuck off. I’m your sister. Of course I’m going to help you!”

“But I didn’t … the hell?”

“What?”

“Is that Minky?”

I turned around. The calico - was it Minky, then? - had come strutting into the kitchen.   
Charlie must have opened the door for it. It circled around Sam’s legs twice, then jumped onto one of the chairs and meowed loudly before closing its eyes - just two of them now - and going to sleep.


End file.
